PHILADELPHIA — Knicks fans raised their brooms outside the arena and pumped up the volume once inside. They poured in by the thousands and serenaded the may-as-well-be home team in the waning moments of another lopsided playoff victory with chants of “Knicks in four! Knicks in four!”
Here's a more substantial number than four for the Knicks: Try winning in the playoffs by almost 20 points a game.
Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns — you too, Deuce McBride and Landry Shamet — have stretched New York's steamroll through the postseason into the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year.
The 76ers were but a pesky speed bump for the Knicks as they rolled to a series sweep and their seventh straight postseason win overall under coach Mike Brown.
Perhaps the only drawback from the Knicks soundly thumping the 76ers 144-114 on Sunday is the expected lengthy layoff before New York gets a crack at either Cleveland or Detroit in the conference finals. Detroit leads Cleveland 2-1 in the series with Game 4 set for Monday.
“Yeah, you like the rhythm that you're in,” Brown said. “But if we expect to be who we're capable of being, we'll find a way to stay consistent with what we're doing, whether it's the energy level, the effort level, or embracing-slash-focusing on the details that we have to be able to understand in order to get a win.”
The Knicks, as the kids say, understood the assignment and refused to let Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and the rest of a Sixers team brimming with confidence after rallying from a 3-1 series deficit in the first round to beat Boston ever pose a serious threat at pulling off a second straight upset.
As for the time off, the Knicks could use a few extra days of rest, especially for injured forward OG Anunoby. Anunoby missed Games 3 and 4 with a strained right hamstring and remained day to day. The 6-foot-7 Anunoby, who is considered the Knicks’ top defender, is averaging 21.4 points in the postseason.
That type of monster production is tricky to replace and in the long haul — of which the Knicks expect to be part of this season — it just may be if Anunoby misses a serious amount of time. In a short sample size, the Knicks thrived, especially against a emotionally flattened Sixers team on the brink of a sweep.
McBride, once known for his defense but who has since blossomed into a reliable outside threat, started for Anunoby and essentially won the clincher in the first quarter. McBride hit seven 3-pointers, going 4 for 4 in the first quarter when the Knicks sank 11 of 13, and scored 25 points overall. With Knicks fans on their feet and exclaiming “Deuuuce,” McBride hit one, two, three, four — four! — 3-pointers in succession for a 20-6 lead and the South Philadelphia arena rocking like it was Madison Square Garden.
“I definitely knew the Knicks had crazy fans,” McBride said.
The hype of the Knicks' fans takeover in Philadelphia was very much real and reached fever pitch levels in Game 4.
Spike Lee and Timothée Chalamet were among the A-list Knicks fans that had tickets to Friday night's game in Philly. In Game 4, fans found their way around the Sixers' supposed ticket-buying barriers about as easily as the Knicks hit 3-pointers and passed the eye test of taking up the overwhelming bulk of the 19,746 fans inside Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Embiid's pleas ahead of the series for Sixers fans not to sell their tickets to Knicks fans fell on deaf ears and led to deafening roars for New York. Knicks fans amusingly printed off photos of Embiid getting posterized by Mitch Robinson on a Game 3 dunk. Knicks fans waved the photos at the oft-injured Embiid while he shot free throws, and they yelled at him “Mr. Glass,” a fictionalized movie character with brittle bone disease.
“I used to think Philly was a sports town, I don’t know if it is anymore,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said.
Home-court edge, even on the road, only means so much in the playoffs.
What really matters can often be found in the box score.
The Knicks had 33 assists on 49 baskets in Game 4 and added to their streak of turning close-out games into blowout games. After beating Atlanta by 51 points to clinch their first-round series win, they led by as many as 44 points in Game 4 against the Sixers and won by 30.
The Knicks’ 19.4 point-per-game margin of victory is the largest through two rounds since the playoffs went to 16 teams in 1984.
The Knicks haven’t reached the NBA Finals since 1999 and haven’t won the championship since 1973. Yet, they've turned the postseason into their playground and are listed as the favorite to emerge from the East and are behind only defending champion Oklahoma City and San Antonio to win the title.
“We're still writing out story,” Brunson said.
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